


Arbitrary Rules, Batfamily Edition

by Ferith12



Series: Arbitrary Rules [7]
Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: Arbitrary Rules [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790317
Kudos: 5





	1. Table of Contents

2\. Bruce Wayne, on Dick Grayson, fatherhood and hope, 163 words

3\. Young Justice Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson is probably Robin and Barbara considers her future, 100 words

4\. Tim Drake, on the importance of photographs, 319 words

5\. Jason Todd, on being good, 95 words


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce Wayne and #9, Write something only using sentences that are ten words or less.

Hold something precious in your hands: like this.

The world slips away. Light slips through your fingers, and it’s dark. You try to hold on and you break apart. Brute force can only get you so far. You keep trying anyway.

Hold something precious in your hands, don’t crush it.

Children are so very fragile. You don’t know how to be a father. You don’t know how to build instead of break. But you can’t leave things shattered, can’t turn your back. You hold the child close and you try.

Dick Grayson bounces back. He’s like sunlight, like laughter in the dark. He hurts easily, but then he heals. He smiles at you, and wipes away his tears. He flies like all of Gotham is his playground. You feel your lips twitching upwards.

Hold something precious in your hands. Look through the cracks to see the stars. Hope isn’t something you reach for far away. Hope is what you hold within your arms.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara Gordon and #3, a True Drabble  
> Set in the Young Justice cartoon

Barbara was pretty sure her best friend was Robin. She couldn’t be certain, it was a feeling more than anything, but out of all the thirteen-year-olds that Barbara knew of, Dick was the only one with the skills for it, and didn’t plan to use them either competitively or professionally.

“What do you want to do when you grow up?” Barbara asked. 

“Ugh,” Dick said, “I don’t want to think about it.”

Barbara had plans for the Olympics, but the more she thought about them they got replaced. Barbara’s best friend was a superhero, she wanted to be one too. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim Drake and #20, Write something in first person present tense (this is literally just because I hate first person present tense with every fiber of my being)

I like taking pictures. I like to be able to prove that things happened. It’s really important that a lot of my pictures never get seen by anyone else, but I like the idea that my memories would still be there even if I disappeared, that they exist somewhere outside my own head.

My most precious possession is a picture, I guess that’s how it started. It’s a picture of me when I was just a baby, maybe close to two years old. I’m with a family, a man and a woman and a boy holding me. They’re all smiling, the parents are standing right behind the boy, like they’re watching over us. The boy is looking more at me than the camera, and the way he smiles at me, the way he holds me, it’s like I matter to him, like I’m something unique and precious. I have my arms around the boy’s neck, and I’m not facing the camera at all really, but you can still see that I’m smiling, too. Not a fake smile, or the kind of smile a little kid might get if they see something shiny or something, but a real smile, like I’m really, genuinely happy. It’s the only picture of me that I’ve seen where I look really happy.

The people in the photo don’t look like they’re related to me, but I look like I fit with them, we look like a family. I don’t have any pictures like that with my mom and dad. 

The boy in the picture is Dick Grayson, and it was taken the day his parents were killed.

I don’t know who took the picture, or why. I don’t remember meeting Dick Grayson when I was little. But that’s how it started, I guess. That one moment, when people were kind and I was happy. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being thankful for that.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason Todd and 12, Write something that has exactly three (3) adjectives

He had always tried to be good. He had always wanted to be good. Wanted to live up to himself, wanted to live past his circumstances wanted to live well enough, live easily enough, to one day be good.

He knew things didn’t come easily. He knew that you couldn’t choose the easy way out. He knew that being good wasn’t easy, and he didn’t ask that it be easy. All he asked was that it be possible.

(And it hurt when that hope turned out to be the lie he’d always guessed it was.)


End file.
